The Paceline Podcast #11

The Paceline focuses on safety in the pro peloton as the calendar turns to one of the most important, crowded and aggressive races of the season-The Tour of Flanders. The week prior, a Belgian pro racer was killed after he crashed then was run over by a motorcycle.

Padraig, Fatty and Michael discuss the hardest rides they have ever done. Collectively they have more 75 years of experiences but they may have nothing on one 17 year old who traveled half way around the world to compete and suffer.

SRAM’s new 12 speeed, mountain bike group has been revealed. The Paceline goes over each component. And SRAM is writing the obituary (in video form) for the mountain bike front derailleur.

2 comments

Your “hardest ride” stories were great, so much about the cyclist’s creed of pain + suffering = fun
Patrick’s particularly resonated with me. Though my endurance level is nowhere near yours, your experience reminded me of when my endurance was stretched to the limit and beyond, and I relish the memory.

Regarding the conversation on sexism in advertising (was that in this session?), us Yanks have to be careful in an international forum, not to infect other nationalities with our pathological adherence to Puritanism.

The US is a virtual theocracy, and Puritan ethic has infected most of us, even the non-religious. An image that would seem overtly sex-charged to a typical American might be just an image of a human body to a European.

“I have made man in my image, and remember that parts of are nasty.”
Les.B.

I think it’s really important not to conflate our burgeoning theocracy with the basic tenets of treating people with respect. The flap over Playboy and Specialized wasn’t about sex. It was about the objectification of women, which has nothing to do with religion. Specialized, for all the many things they’ve managed to do wrong over the years, has at least stayed clear of religion. People were upset because they have done an otherwise stellar job of portraying women as rad and capable. The women who rip in Specialized’s marketing and ad materials would shred me and then laugh, not giggle. Those are the women I want to ride with, the ones who can fix their own flats. Had this been a religious thing, a la Utah, different people would have been speaking up.